


The Angel of Small Death

by sweetdreamsaremadeoffish



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Deal With It, F/F, Funerals, In Which Mary is a useless lesbian, also Mum Spellman empty-nested HARD, and a nerd, and lil' M makes my heart happy, and so am i, big ‘oh she’ vibes, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish/pseuds/sweetdreamsaremadeoffish
Summary: And she stands now, staring at the latticed red door.The Spellman house is even more magical than she remembers.
Relationships: Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 28
Kudos: 89





	The Angel of Small Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Singofsolace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singofsolace/gifts).



> heyo loves!
> 
> I got you some awkward, yearning Spellwell crack, as requested by Singofsolace/@concreteangel1221
> 
> So I'm sure you guys have heard about the copyright crisis with that unofficial reader app committing , y'know, mass intellectual property theft. It's been a day, but I'm hopeful that Apple and Google will sort this out and amend the undue profit issues visited on this community. So I'm still out here posting my work.
> 
> Or maybe I'm just an incurable impulse-actor.
> 
> Who's to say? <3
> 
> (and yes, the title is a little play off of the Hozier song. I'm a lesbean, what do you want?)

Her car putters along in line, solemn as it sputters up the Mortuary drive, ants creeping in a long, thin antenna toward their final rest. Mary parks in a little patch of grass behind the plot of graves in the yard and tucks at her hair in the rearview mirror before following the trailing tails of family and friends creaking up the Spellman Mortuary’s front steps.

The house is dark and tilted where it’s planted on a low hill, fairly far outside Greendale proper. It’s been ages since she was in this part of their small town, but the fog clinging to her coat brings a comforting chill of home.

She’s always known it’s there. The Mortuary. It’s much like death in that way. Ever-present, but just out of sight.

Her father had never let her come here.

When she was seven years old, unsure footing on her bicycle and fresh freedom from training wheels left her with badly scraped knees. She’d limped up the nearest driveway and knocked on the latticed red front door. A very nice, very pretty lady had opened it and fawned over her bloody shins, sitting her on the kitchen counter and singing softly to her while she wicked gravel and grime from the cuts with a warm, wet cloth. She’d patched Mary up and pointed out a shortcut through the woods when she sent her on her way, a kiss lingering on Mary’s forehead as she wandered home.

It was only once she’d made it halfway there she remembered she’d left her bicycle behind. She deliberated for a moment, then pressed on. She would retrieve it in the morning. But upon reaching home at sunset, Mary found her bicycle leaning up against the porch, a new silver bell screwed to its handlebars.

Her father had been furious.

His clerical collar cut into his neck as his face swelled red, preaching fire and brimstone and damnation. The Spellmans were cursed and strange, and Mary was _never_ to enter that house again, lest she wish the mark of Satan on herself and all she loved. 

After his outburst dulled to embers, Mary’s mother had quietly gathered her up to her little bedroom, and they sat together on Mary’s rosy covers, her mother telling her to write Mrs. Spellman a ‘thank-you’ note on fancy stationery paper.

Mary received a letter from her mother within the first year of college with news that Mrs. Spellman had died.

Mary couldn’t explain why she cried.

She stayed in Boston to pursue her doctorate, but a few years later another letter arrived from home. Her father had passed, and her aging, ailing mother needed her more than any degree.

So she came home.

And she stands now, staring at the latticed red door.

Outside a funeral for a friend of a family friend. In a small town like theirs, every death is a death in the family. Her mother is at home, sleeping through the afternoon, and Mary is the image of studious innocence and a daughter’s obedience, still clasping hands on the way inside and answering sweetly when her wide, welcoming family asks her about school and her mother’s health and if there will wedding bells for her sometime soon.

Mary just laughs lightly, brushing the thought away and shaking her head.

The Spellman house is even more magical than she remembers.

It’s almost as if every color, every pattern—tastefully selected, almost curated—is brighter there, like the stained glass windows have washed each richly adorned room in vibrant emotion. Distance is deeper and looking closer reveals layers of fine details that twist Mary’s eye to them, demanding in their beauty.

Her own research in school reveals an assortment of possibly occult objects hidden in plain sight. Rabbits placed on polished stairs, snakes, claws, teeth, and five-pointed stars are folded into the furniture, even the wallpaper, but the shiver that runs down her spine is not her father’s fear. She commits everything to memory for updating her sketches and notes as soon she gets home, and she buzzes with excitement, finding fascination in the darkness woven into the ornate carpets and has to tear herself from near gawking around the foyer, returning to the stream of townsfolk flowing sober into the room set for the wake.

Rows of black folding chairs only make sense in concert with the sea of black-swathed mourners flooding the parlor. Otherwise, the mural on the far wall, an apple tree bowed with the weight of bright fruit, the Persian rug, the mahogany sideboards at the back are all far too elegant for such a modest affair.

And she’s supposed to be _grieving_ , not admiring the decor.

Mary’s standing in the center of the aisle when the world turns upside down.

 _She_ is standing in the doorway, leaning against it like gravity hasn’t unraveled, like she’s the only constant force in the universe and Mary thinks she might be. She’s wrapped in royal purple, crushed velvet blazer buttoned bronze, golden-red hair over her sloping shoulders in 1940s curls, and a graceful, delicately dazzling face like one of those classic Hollywood beauties. Light bends to her, rushing sunshine over pearly skin. Her lips are stained scarlet, her gaze sharp. How could the Devil dwell so close to an _angel_?

Someone bumps into her, frozen as she is in the middle of the room, but her jaw is too loose for an apology, her ankles wobbling weak on her way down into a seat.

She’s glowing with magic. That has to be it. Mary must be bewitched. But if this is evil, if _she_ is the work of Satan, then Mary hopes God will have mercy on her sullied soul. She feels filthy just looking at her, unworthy and unclean, but a quieter pulse of purity swells below, a tiny nightingale trilling in her chest and in her ears all through the eulogy, the Lord’s prayers drowned in song.

Afterward, _she_ disappears, and there’s a potluck spread in the kitchen, its organization English accented by the other Spellman sister, all sweet faced and cheery. Mary slides her blueberry pie to the end of the long dining table and ducks out again with a humble plate, avoiding the mayor’s secretary with her romanticist’s prying and lace swatches. 

She wanders around the house, studying the edges of every room, exploring. A little arched door is nestled under the staircase, and an old aching to slip into Alice’s shoes to Wonderland makes her too curious to resist. Spiraled iron meets her sensible Mary Janes step by step, and she lands in a green-tiled room, a wall of lockers, a scale, and a gruesome assortment of tools laid out in the crisp scent of formaldehyde and something else bitter that she can’t quite place.

This must be their morgue. But before she can investigate further, a pointed cough rips through the stale air and jolts Mary to her core.

She whips to face _her_ , smooth legs crossed carelessly atop a desk in the little anteroom off the far corner. Mary stumbled back, overturning the tray of tools and catching her breath amongst the clattering.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” the Spellman woman purrs, low and sensuous, nearly cracking Mary in two as she peers down her aristocratic nose through a pair of dark-framed glasses, interrupted in the middle of some brick-leather-bound book.

“I’m sorry, I-” And then her legs are down off the desk and across the room and they’re nose to nose.

Her eyes are jade green.

“ _Zelda!_ ”

They’re cheek to cheek, turning to find Hilda pinked in the doorway. Mary’s bent back toward the cold slab, and she, _Zelda_ , stays too close, her ivory skin running warm so Mary can feel the heat of her very much alive body crackling in this stark, dead room.

“What, Hilda?” She asks, not caring for an answer, tongue over teeth as she looks down at mousy little Mary like a lion eyes its prey.

Hilda, unsatisfied, has a hand on her sister’s shoulder then, pushing her back and pulling Mary back upright with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about her, love, she’s not the best with personal space,” she mutters, returning Mary’s forgotten plate with a friendly touch. “Or people.”

“Hence being sequestered here for the duration of your visit.” Zelda’s back at her desk, back with her book, back to her imperious eyebrows and soft curves and-

“Right! Exactly.” Hilda fixes her with a warning glare. “Now, why don’t you just head back upstairs with the others and get yourself a fresh plate? I’m not sure the morgue is-”

“I’d love to, um, know more about the morgue, actually,” Mary interjects, adjusting her glasses, tucking her bangs back. “The embalming process and such? I have a bit of a morbid interest in-”

“Aunties, we’re out of-” The boy swings down from the spiral staircase by a sturdy arm and rapidly shuts his mouth when he lays eyes on the scene. He drops down beside Hilda. “Everything alright down here?”

“Ah, finally, someone finishes a sentence.” Zelda again, lighting a cigarette.

“Yes, love, everything’s fine, our friend here was just leaving,” Hilda says, taking her gently by the arm. “What did you say your name was, dear?”

“I didn’t.” Mary stands her ground politely as she can. “I’m Mary. Mary Wardwell.” She extends a hand in Zelda’s direction. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Zelda eyes her, standing to squint, then returning the proffered greeting with a tinge of interest under her long lashes. “And you, Ms. Wardwell.” She tugs her closer, both hands gripping Mary’s now. “Please pardon my little sister’s misunderstanding, she simply means to have you rejoin your fellow mourners upstairs. But I’d be happy to provide you a detailed tour of our procedures and services at a more appropriate time. Perhaps later this week?”

She couldn’t refuse if she wanted to.

“Of course. Maybe Wednesday evening?”

“Perfect. Hilda and Ambrose leave on business tomorrow.” Hilda scoffs, and Zelda releases her, sizing her up in retreat. “So we’ll have the house all to ourselves.”

“Perfect,” she repeats, mesmerized by that rose of a mouth.

Hilda’s tugging on her arm again, and this time she goes. “Yes, perfect, now let’s see if we can get you in line for the family, shall we?”

Mary disappears around the corner, and Ambrose comes up behind his remaining aunt in the flickering sallowed light. “I haven’t seen a mortal fight off one of Aunt Hilda’s persuasion spells in ages.”

Zelda nods, helping him straighten the rattled saws and picks. “Nor I. And certainly not with such ease and vigor.”

“So I assume you invited her ‘round purely for the benefit of your intellectual curiosity?” He’s teasing, it tinges his voice, but Zelda pays him little mind.

“Absolutely,” Zelda responds in a huff of silver smoke. “I mean to study her.”

She returns to her seat, biding her time. “I’m going to find out what makes Mary Wardwell tick.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought!
> 
> And, as a bit of a side note, I'm going to be taking a break from writing Lilith (and, as a result, Zelith/Madam Spellman) for a while. I'll still be around in absence of that, I'll just be focusing on more Spellwell projects (and maybe finishing up some outstanding WIPs, we'll see), and I'm very much accepting prompts, so let me know what else you'd like to see!
> 
> As always, love, Ruby


End file.
